GPT-3 has been created by OpenAI, a research business co-founded by Elon Musk and has been described as the most important and useful advance in AI for years.

But there’s some confusion over exactly what it does (and indeed doesn’t do), so here I will try and break it down into simple terms for any non-techy readers interested in understanding the fundamental principles behind it. I’ll also cover some of the problems it raises, as well as why some people think its significance has been overinflated somewhat by hype.